“What happened?” I asked. “What were you doing here?”
“I was out,” he managed. “How did you…?”
“Your uncle,” I said. It was enough for him to get the idea.
“I’m not Venatori,” he said. Then again, as if he cared what I thought: “I was going to … I’m not with them.”
“Sure,” I said.
He reached up and grabbed my sleeve with more strength than I thought he had left. “It’s almost the Hour,” Quentin said. The words sounded forced, as if they pained him more than the knife. His hand sank back.
“What hour?” I asked, but he didn’t say.
“I wasn’t with … anymore. I’m sorry. Who…?” He knew what came next. He was searching for whatever company he had left.
“Neve,” I said.
My name was the last thing he heard.
* * *
What remained of the night didn’t pick up from there.
After Quentin left me, I quickly searched the nearby alleys. I’d no hope the masked figure had stuck around, but I found an elf asleep under a tar-stained coat. I nudged him gently, but he jumped out of his skin all the same, muttering that the boss let him sleep there, then falling silent at the sight of Quentin’s blood on my clothes. He’d seen nothing, of course, but he’d get word to the templars for some coin and a promise he wouldn’t be in trouble. I returned home for a change of clothes and not enough rest, before heading to Otho Calla’s manor—a residence nowhere near the third-rate bookseller where I rent a room.
From what I’d known of Quentin Calla, he’d been a grateful and devoted nephew. Quiet most of the time, but loud when it came to Minrathous’s antislavery movement. A man putting the mistakes of his past behind him and trying to be better. So what had happened?
Otho Calla didn’t care.
The man was taking breakfast by the time I turned up at his ornately carved door. He greeted me with a dismissive “young lady” that made me think he’d forgotten my name.
No matter what Quentin said in the end, his meeting with the robed figure was enough for Otho. Quentin was up to “something unsavory”—whether it was with the Venatori or not—and he’d wash his hands of it now. As far as Otho was concerned my work was done, and he didn’t know or want to know about people in bronze masks. I left Otho staring out the window of an overlarge sitting room. The templars knew about the attack. This was their job now and I could let them have it. I’m sure Quentin’s uncle sent coin right after, telling the templars to keep the Calla name out of it.
A bad night had turned into a bad morning, so I shouldn’t have been surprised when the templars turned up. Or that they’d be more than the usual annoyance.
Minrathous isn’t like the south, where templars control mages. Tevinter loves its mages—especially in Minrathous. Here, templars only act when magic’s used outside the law—except in special cases when the mage-based justicars step in. Or when the right bribe makes a case “special” to them. If a job doesn’t need justicar attention—or they want to consult a mage without being walked over—the templars hire outside assistance. It’s a job I’d taken a few times before finding more than a few jobs of my own. Working on my own doesn’t pay as well as the templars, but I prefer it that way.
Knight-Templar Rana Savas’s armor was shined like prized silverware and her dark hair wouldn’t dare escape its perfect braid. She caught up to me outside my room just as I was returning home for the second time that morning.
“I told your knight-captain, I’m not looking for templar work.”
“Quentin Calla died last night,” Rana said.
“Funny, I heard that, too. In fact, I believe I sent your people word of it.”
“There’s whispers he was Venatori. If that’s true, he’s not the only dead cultist this morning. Lady Varantus…”
Don’t say murdered.
“Murdered,” she said.
Two in one night. I repressed a sigh, thinking of the sleep waiting for me inside, and leaned against the door. “Someone’s after Venatori.”
“It could be…” Rana began, but what was the point?
“It’s not a coincidence,” I said.
“No,” Rana agreed. “A person in a bronze mask was seen in the street. The timing works out.”
I’d gone looking for the truth about one man. One man, I could handle. I hadn’t gone looking for conspiracies. Then again, I’d gone looking for possible Venatori—what did I expect?
“Knight-Captain Jahvis would like your opinion on any similarities between Calla and Lady Varantus,” Rana said. She sounded official but looked as happy to invite me along as I was to work with the templars.
I smiled. “You don’t think I’ll help?”
“From what I heard, you watched the murderer run away,” she said.
I adjusted the cuffs of my coat. “People walk from worse crimes in Minrathous.”
“You’re not under orders.”
I could have let it go. The job had been simple: find out what Quentin Calla was doing. According to his uncle, I had an answer—or enough of one. But I’d watched the murderer run. I’d watched Quentin die and I didn’t know the reason for it. It wasn’t the most satisfying ending. And it wasn’t one I wanted to live with.
“After you,” I said.
* * *
If you want to know where the money is in Minrathous, look to the oldest mage families.
Lady Varantus came from an old family. The floor-to-ceiling windows in her personal study were covered in Orlesian silk. A large marble snake with gold-plated eyes sat coiled in the entrance. The chandelier overhead was excessive—and far too heavy to hang naturally. It’s the sort of enchantment you expect in these old houses. The sort meant to impress while everyone ignores that someone’s great-grandfather used blood magic to put it there.
The lady herself lay facedown in front of a finely carved desk in the center of the room. Scrolls, inkwells, and a small onyx bookend were thrown across the floor. Char marks on the door frame and acidic gouges in the desk suggested a struggle between mages. But there was also a deep gash in Lady Varantus’s neck.
Rana snapped a salute as we entered. Knight-Captain Jahvis stood on the other side of the desk, all patched-up armor and sleep-deprived glares in front of an expensive marble fireplace. I sympathized. My family has more templars than mages. I’m sure that says a lot about me. The point is, I’m not from an old family and I felt as at home in Lady Varantus’s house as Jahvis looked.
“You’re bothering to help,” Jahvis said. And there went the sympathy.
“You wouldn’t ask if you didn’t need it,” I said sweetly.
Jahvis chose to move on. “We suspected Lady Varantus was Venatori for years. Knew she was up to something while their ‘god’ was running around, but we couldn’t get close. Got proof now, for all the good it does.” Then, to another templar with massive arms and a smack of freckles, he said: “Brom, read the stuff, don’t just toss it around.”
Brom let out a sigh and continued sifting through Lady Varantus’s personal correspondence.
“I’d heard of her,” I said, moving to stand next to the woman in question. “Lady Varantus. People said she’d become charitable the last few years.”
“Who knows why the Venatori do anything?” Brom muttered, adding a lace-adorned wedding invitation to the unsteady pile.
The polished floorboards beneath Lady Varantus’s body were stained black. “Quentin Calla was stabbed, too,” I said.
“The attacker was a mage. Why get that close?” Jahvis asked, moving from the desk for another look at the body.
“Maybe she didn’t give them a choice. Maybe they wanted to catch her by surprise,” I suggested. “Or maybe they needed to.”
“Blood magic?” Rana asked, and all three templars looked to me.
Blood magic has a nasty habit of thinning the Veil between our world and the Fade. I closed my eyes and reached for a small amount of magic, sensing how it would
react. It came too readily, flowing too fast from the other side. The Veil in Lady Varantus’s house was thin. Some places are just like that. For this to be one of them would have been too convenient.
“Yes, but why here?” I gestured vaguely to our rich if battle-scarred surroundings. “If the killer needs blood alone, there are less obvious sources than Lady Varantus. If they want Venatori—what ritual are they performing with them?”
“Nothing good,” Jahvis said. “Our best guess is still an anti-cult crusader. Using blood magic against them could be their form of punishment.”
“If someone’s killing Venatori, that’s fewer problems for us,” Brom said.
“It’s not against the law to be a cultist,” Jahvis said.
“Depends what you do with it,” Brom muttered.
“Sacrificing people is,” Jahvis continued. Brom barely hid the scoff, but he didn’t talk back.
“Whoever they’re after, this mage thinks they can get away with murder,” Rana said. “And that we’re useless.”
I bit the urge to say, Aren’t you? I looked at Lady Varantus. Her hair had half fallen from an elaborate bun, but the back of her pale neck was visible. A thin line of bruising arced across the exposed skin, suggesting a fine chain once sat there—one that had been forcibly removed. I bet Quentin Calla had the same marks.
“So, they’re a thief,” Brom said when I pointed it out.
Rana picked up a heavy coin purse and tossed it at Brom. “Nothing else was taken.”
“I’ll ask around,” I said. “If I find anything, I’ll let you know.”
Jahvis looked unimpressed. “I thought you weren’t interested in templar work.”
“Oh, I’m not,” I said. “I’m finishing the work I started.”
To punctuate the day I was having, a cold drizzle met me at the door. I watched my footing as I made my way down Lady Varantus’s front stairs. The telltale tapping of rain on metal sounded as Rana followed me outside.
“We have known contacts and relatives of Lady Varantus—”
“I’m sure you do,” I said. “And good luck getting anything from them.”
“It’s standard practice to start there,” Rana said.
“‘Standard practice’ isn’t my top concern. You’re stunned, I know.”
“Is that why you don’t like working with templars?” Rana asked, a hint of triumph in her voice as if she’d caught me at something.
“No,” I said casually. “That’s not why.”
Her brow furrowed, and a light scowl touched her lips. She wasn’t ready to drop it just yet. “Do you have anything more on Calla?”
I smiled. “I’ll find something.”
* * *
If the world was fair, I would have found something right away to prove a point. But I spent the rest of the day speaking to dockworkers who’d heard the Calla name, of course, but didn’t know Quentin himself. If someone was seeking Venatori jewelry, the best fence this end of the Imperial Highway hadn’t heard of it. If someone in a bronze mask had been lurking around, the night guard hadn’t seen them. He hadn’t seen me or Quentin either, so I shouldn’t have been surprised there.
As I was returning from the docks, I saw a Venatori street-prophet on the corner. His robes were clean, if faded, his hair neatly combed. He paced back and forth, trying and failing to make eye contact with the people walking by. He held a piece of paper in his hand that no one took.
“Tevinter was glorious,” he said. “Look at Minrathous now—are we content? Our god would see us lifted. We can still do so. Corypheus’s machinations live on in us…”
The prophet raised his voice over the noise—the grunts and curses of sweat-soaked laborers hauling goods from the docks, the impatient chatter of errand runners, food sellers pushing fried dough, the sharp rattle of coin against metal as a man in stained soldier’s clothes tried for sympathy. No one looked at the soldier. No one looked at the prophet either, although maybe more liked his ideas than were willing to admit. Even I want a better Minrathous. But the Venatori? The cult’s dead god wanted to bring Tevinter back to what it was—to its “glory.” It was nonsense, of course. It always was. The old empire was even more corrupt and heartless than what it is now, no matter how pretty the picture Corypheus painted. As the prophet continued his speech, I wondered what had made Quentin and Lady Varantus a target and not him. It seemed a necklace had marked them as victims, but what made the jewelry special—and why did they both have one in the first place?
I needed answers and I was running out of ideas. Even my best source of information, Elek Tavor, didn’t have much. The man was a con artist I’d turned in the year before. To be fair, he’d nearly gotten me killed the year before that, so we were even.
“There’s not much to say,” Elek said when I met him at the Lamplighter at sunset, a tavern three streets too far to be in a nicer part of the city. A place known for the bronze lanterns over its tables and the tight lips of its barkeep. The silent dwarf smacked a pair of drinks in front of us before being hailed by a group of dirt-smeared men who “needed a drink before they were caught at it.” A couple with Antivan accents continued a whispered conversation in the corner.
“I don’t know who Calla thought he was meeting at the docks,” Elek continued, “but I know why. He turned up a few times, asking about false papers, places to buy horses or hire a boat with no one noticing. That sort of thing.”
“For how many?”
“Just one.”
I slid a few coins across the table. “Stay out of trouble, Elek.”
Elek tossed one of the coins back. “Wasn’t worth that much. Supper’s on me.”
I took the coin to the best place at any hour: a tiny stall in the lower market run by a man named Halos.
“You,” barked Halos as I approached, dropping a piece of fish into the sizzling oil without asking. He held out a hand for payment. “This fish won’t eat itself.”
“Then you’re lucky I’m here.”
“You’d starve without me.” Halos wiped his hands on an oil-spotted apron and handed me the food—salty, piping hot, and perfect as always. He turned to the next person in line and began frying up another piece of fish.
I ate as I walked, my mind stuck on the day and the night before. Elek hadn’t told me much, but what he’d said bothered me. Quentin had been trying to get a single person out of the city. It might have been connected to the antislavery movement … or it may have been for himself. Quentin hadn’t been caught by surprise—not entirely. He’d expected someone at the docks; he’d wanted to leave a message with “the others.” The way he’d toyed at the chain around his neck … he’d known something was coming. Had Lady Varantus known, too? From the look of her study, she’d put up a fight. Had the two spoken beforehand? Had something else warned them?
“Neve Gallus.” The voice was low and urgent. The shadowed streets were starting to empty, but still bustled with people heading home for the day and those who didn’t plan on going home at all. I turned, trying to pinpoint the source of the voice, and caught sight of a man staring at me from a tired shrine to Razikale. The statue’s features were worn away at the feet, and the tip of one outstretched wing was chipped. The man gave a nervous jerk of his head before ducking back into the dragon’s shadow.
“Neve Gallus,” the man said again as I followed him behind the shrine. His eyes were bloodshot and he didn’t know how to hold his arms, crossing and uncrossing them again. His robes were well-made with gold threading at the cuffs. The silver egret pin at his throat bobbed and shook as much as he did.
“You’ve been asking after Quentin Calla,” he said. “You’ve seen Lady Varantus as well.”
“Do you know something?”
The sound he made was more a yelp than a laugh. “They’re dead.”
“Well, aren’t you insightful?” When the man didn’t respond, I made to go. “If we’ve exhausted your knowledge, I’d like to finish my supper. If I’m lucky, maybe get a good night�
��s sleep when I’m done.”
“The Hour’s coming,” he choked out. Then gave another yelping laugh.
I could hear Quentin’s voice echoed in his words, smell the blood pooled on wet cobblestones. He had my attention. “What’s the Hour? What do you know?”
The man shook his head. “Paxus was killed last week. No one noticed that one. Well, almost no one.”
“This Paxus. Venatori?” I asked.
“Yes.”
The night before, Quentin Calla had been my only problem. The day had brought templars and Lady Varantus. Now I had this strange man and another dead cultist.
One problem at a time. That’s how I preferred it. I may have been better off walking away.
“Do you want to know what Aelia took?” He’d changed tacks again, this time emphasizing the new direction by shoving a round clay disc into my hands, although he kept hold of the chain attached to it.
“Aelia’s the one who killed them?”
The man nodded. “They all had one. You can keep it. If it helps you, all the better.”
I tugged on the chain, but despite his words the man didn’t want to let go.
“What is this?” I pressed. “What is the Hour?”
People can surprise you. In Minrathous, those surprises tend more toward Surprise—your aunt’s a blood mage than I brought you flowers. The man trembling in Razikale’s shadow surprised me by summoning an arcane flash of light instead of an answer.
I cursed more at myself than at him. By the time I could see, the man was gone and the remains of my fried fish lay on the ground. My stomach and head argued over which was more upsetting.
He’d left me the necklace. The clay seal fit in the palm of my hand and was seated in a polished black shell attached to a gold chain. A long, thin dragon with four wings was etched on the front, rising from a dark sea. I’d run into the Venatori before, but never seen anything like this. I could sense an enchantment on the thing but couldn’t tell what it was for. Whatever it was, Quentin Calla had died for it. So had Lady Varantus. And Paxus, whoever he was. It was more than I’d known that morning and at the same time it meant nothing. I still didn’t know why.
Dragon Age: Tevinter Nights Page 25
